The Man Who Was Too Busy To Shit
Ten minutes was all Fencepost needed to squeeze out a proper one. He looked at his watch and thought he would have just enough time before he had to leave for his job at the surgical implement factory. Twelve of his children had already left for school and the six remaining were in the living room, suckling his bountifully benippled wife, Balustrade. Yes, he thought, this was really going to happen.
The phone rang.
Goddamn. He’d have to answer it. Balustrade had too many children attached to her.
“Hello,” he said.
“Fencepost?” The voice was asexually robotic.
“Yes.”
“You owe us some money.”
Fencepost owed a lot of people money. With eighteen children, it was impossible to stay on top of the bills.
“Who is ‘us’?”
“You know who it is.” He didn’t. “Never fear. We’ve come up with a way for you to work it off.”
“This is a bit unconventional.”
“You know what’s unconventional? Not paying your debts. That’s what’s unconventional.”
Fencepost thought about it and realized he didn’t know of anyone who did pay their debts.
“There’s no reason to get nasty,” the voice said.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“When you leave your job at the implement factory, we’ll need you to go to this address. Are you ready? Do you have a pen and paper?”
“There’s no need. I’ll remember.”
“Like hell.”
“No, really, just give me the address.”
“There’s that tone again.” The voice gave him the address. Fencepost knew immediately where it was. A series of drab office buildings down by the riverfront. He didn’t bother asking about the pay and the nature of the work. He knew the former would be minimal at best and the latter would be ridiculous, grueling, and unrewarding.
“I’ll be there.” The voice had already hung up.
Fencepost slammed the phone down and said, “Goddamn.”
The shit continued to build.
— — —
Fencepost went to his job at the implement factory. He worked a tedious ten-hour day typing in descriptions of all the damaged surgical instruments sent to them by various hospitals, serial killers, and cutters. He would not be able to shit at work. He had a phobia about defecating in public stalls. It didn’t help matters the unventilated restroom was in the middle of the office, allowing everyone to hear the gaseous crescendos of any potential expulsions. Besides, he didn’t have enough time. Two ten-minute breaks. He was given an unpaid hour lunch break he couldn’t afford to take. He only took ten minutes to scarf down a rancid sandwich he found moldering in the community refrigerator. He left the job in the early evening feeling, as he did every day, deeply humiliated. He got into his car and drove down to the riverfront.
Arriving at the series of stark office buildings, he took a deep breath and got out of his car. He approached the address given him and rang the buzzer next to the door. The door buzzed, only it wasn’t a mechanical-sounding buzz. It sounded like someone making a buzzing sound. He pulled the door but it was still locked. He continued to press the buzzer and frantically pull the door. He wanted to leave but he desperately needed the opportunity to work off this debt. The day grew dark and Fencepost continued to stand next to the door. I could be shitting right now, he thought.
Another car pulled into the parking lot and the plainest-looking man Fencepost had ever seen got out. He punched the door and it opened right away. At last, Fencepost thought, I’ll be able to get in.
“Better stay out here,” the man said.
“I think I work here,” Fencepost said.
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
Fencepost fought the urge to bite the man on the neck and continued to stand outside. Over the course of the evening several other workers came: a few plain-looking people, a dwarf, a clown, an astronaut, and someone who either had to be a stripper or a porn star, possibly both.
Eight hours later, amidst the dirge from a distant barge, the croaking of frogs, and the dry rasp of insects, a voice, presumably the one from his earlier phone conversation, came through the speaker. “You can go home now.”
Fencepost stared at the speaker. He was very tired. He couldn’t even think of anything to say.
“Come back tomorrow and you’ll be closer to paying off your debt.”
Fencepost turned and headed back toward his car.
The shit continued to build.
— — —
Stepping through the front door, Fencepost was immediately bombarded by his herd of children. They dragged him down onto the floor and wrestled with him. He struggled to get away for a few moments, to try and make it to the restroom, but he soon gave in to the wild romp. He had a hard time saying no. Eventually, Balustrade came to corral them into their respective bedrooms. It was very late. Fencepost wasn’t sure why the children weren’t in bed when he got home. Oh well, at least it allowed him to see them for a bit. That was important to him even though he couldn’t quite remember all their names.
Balustrade had left his meal on the table. She would put the children to bed, take a bath, and then go to bed herself. Fencepost would have to eat quickly so he could make it to the bathroom before her bath. It was absurd that, in a house with this many people, there was only the one bathroom. He inhaled his food and raced upstairs. Too late. He heard the water running. Maybe he should just go out and poop in the yard.
He lay on the bed and waited for Balustrade to finish her bath.
He must have dozed off because Balustrade woke him the next morning, warning him not to be late for work.
The shit continued to build.
Fencepost felt full and stiff.
The next two days were exactly the same.
— — —
By the end of the week Fencepost had stopped eating. He didn’t think he could possibly fit anything else in there. When he came home from work, Balustrade was once again in the bath. She had sent the children off to the Grandparent Farm, a large home for the elderly out in the country. The residents had absolutely no idea whose grandchildren were whose. All weekend, the place was aswarm with savage children, exhausted elderly, and utterly perplexed attendants.
— — —
It happened while they were fucking.
Fencepost became a shitstorm.
He had fallen asleep in the recliner in the living room and awoke to Balustrade straddling him.
No, he thought. This isn’t possible. Even more impossibly, he found himself aroused. He could make it quick. It had been so long since he and Balustrade had made love he figured it would only take a matter of seconds. But it didn’t even come to that. Balustrade moved to kiss him on the neck and he exploded into a furious cloud of shit.
Balustrade jumped off his lap and looked down at her soiled negligee in horror. She began screaming. Consumed by his own shit, Fencepost ran around the house, stinking, and soiled everything. He didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t even human anymore. If this was the way he was going to go, he wanted to make the most of it.
He swirled back downstairs and out the front door. He jumped in his car, opening the door and turning the wheel with sloppy, stinking shit hands, staining the seats, infecting the car with his fecal reek.
He drove to his first job, deserted at this time of night, and shittily unlocked and opened the door. He smeared himself everywhere—on all the walls and phones and chairs. He left a good deal of himself in the boss’ office and hoped there was a security camera there, recording everything.
Onto the second, if only temporary, job. As always, and especially afflicted with his new condition, he wasn’t able to breach the door. But he was sure to cover it, turning its sparkly glass opaque with his filth. He drenched the speakerbox next to the door and left a whole glop of himself on the button.
He crossed the road, still angrily swirling but greatly depleted, and threw himself into the gently babbling sewage of the river. It took him out to the very ends of the earth where his consciousness, like his body, dissipated into all the essential elements of life.
